I Lost My Job – Day #-17 HEALTH INSURANCE!

Not only am I the primary provider of income to my family, but I am also the sole provider of health insurance. As a result of my upcoming termination our family’s health coverage will end. DW has had a lot of health issues so this is a really big deal for us. Here’s how we’re dealing with that:

We could go with COBRA. If you don’t know about COBRA, it basically serves a continuation of your current insurance except you end up paying a much higher price because it’s no longer subsidized by your employer. For us, I think that cost would close to $1,700/mth. What?! Yeah, that’s the cost of healthcare, even on a high deductible plan. Horrendous and not acceptable. That’s a lot more than I pay for our mortgage.

We could go with nothing. Well, no we can’t. First, DW’s health is too tenuous for us to risk something like that. Second the Affordable Care Act makes that kind of thing subject to fines so why pay the fines with no coverage when you can go to the ACA exchange and get covered.

We could go to the ACA exchange and look for a plan. We did, and it was actually pretty simple to do it all. There are of course lots of variables involved, but if you focus on those most relevant to you, you can quickly narrow the list. We found a Gold plan that we liked and would move some of DW’s providers in network. It’s going to be about $750/mth. That’s a lot of money too. It’s about twice what I’m paying with my employer subsidized plan, but it’s $1k/mth cheaper than COBRA. (Pro tip: you need to sign up before the 15th of the month you’re in in order for the coverage to kick in at the start of the new month)

So, we’re all set right? Not even. The new plan doesn’t include dental. So, what are we doing there? Well, we’ve all already visited the dentist once this year, but we’re allowed 2 visits for prophylaxis per calendar year, and we get to choose when that happens. So, we’re all going to the dentist this month to get our covered dental checkups and hoping I find a job in 6 months before our teeth rot out!

The job search itself is now progressing a bit more slowly. I have applied to all the low hanging fruit out there locally, and I continue to mine the job sites and network as much as possible. It will just take time, and I have to be patient. At least I have the health insurance peice already figured out.

You might want to check directly with the health insurance provider that you chose through the ACA exchange. When I looked for plans for myself, I noticed that some providers included dental and vision with their plan if you purchased it directly through them instead of going through the exchange, and it was for the same price. Kinda like looking at flight prices through Kayak/Orbitz/Expedia, finding the flight you want, then going directly to that airline’s website to buy the ticket through them directly.